


Names

by Satan (CherryBones)



Series: Immortals [4]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - GTA, Gen, Immortal Fake AH Crew, also mention of relationships from ages ago but not actual shippy stuff so, idk im just gonna stop rambling now, there's like violence and maybe gross stuff mentioned but its not super explicit so idk, there's others but much like ages this is a character study/backstory for gav soooo, this got so long holy shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 05:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4774742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryBones/pseuds/Satan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of a man who sees the world in shades of grey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Names

The world was grey, the colors dulled and dim and faded with time. Or, at the very least, that's how it seemed to him after so long. He'd learned with time that he was simultaneously young and old. It seemed that people of his kind were rarer once upon a time. Another possibility is that it was simply harder for them to run across each other.

He was from the turn of the times, the place where modern historians start counting the years up instead of down, give or take a few decades. Time wasn't defined by much other than season way back then and even those were subject to change, so it was all a little bit of guesswork. His birth was during the hottest point of the warmest season, the air like fire in their lungs. They admired his mother for surviving his birth and they admired him for surviving it as well. They continued to admire the fact that despite his lithe frame, he survived into what they considered adulthood. Many didn’t make it through childhood or the harsh cold of the winter or the dampness of the lands. Sickness was a nasty way to go, coughing out blood and sour bile until your body simply gave out. He didn’t go by sickness, he never seemed to get sick that first life. Ironically he died in a way similar to his birth. He went by fire, screaming as his flesh burnt to a crisp. That should have been the end of it, one more existence wiped out by something other than old age, though by their standards he was just about there. But it wasn’t the end, not long after the fire choked itself out he woke amongst the soot and ash completely unharmed and feeling better than he had in ages. They touted it as a miracle, claiming their gods were protecting him, that he was destined for something great. He reveled in it at first. He was awaited, someone with a destiny, _special._ But nothing came. No war, no great plague or famine that only he could stop. Nothing. His family aged around him. The tale of the miracle began to turn into whispers of something else and it made him feel so very tired. He left in the dead of night, leaving what remained of his bloodline with just their memories. They would forget him with time.

After that first life he traveled, walking until he hit water, then working his way up and around. In those next seasons he died many ways, hunger being the most common. He had mapped the edges of his seemingly little island with his feet well by the time that the people in boats came as they had many winters before, helmed not by the man from the stories he'd heard as a child, tales of that first relatively failed invasion. They didn't fail this time, bringing their strange language and dress and spreading it much farther than just the southern civilizations. He learned the name of the man from the stories. He had been dead for many years. He had been dead for many winters, murdered by his council and deified. He tried not to be jealous. He mostly succeeded.

As the men, the Romans, slowly worked their way up the island, he took the chance and fumbled his way through weak Latin to secure passage back to their homeland. He didn’t want to come back to the isle for a while. It would call him back someday, he was sure, but not for a while. There was nothing left for him there.

Rome was sprawling and full and failing, he could see it. It would be a while, yes, but it was failing all the same. Civil wars had torn them apart and shaken the foundations. But until the fall, he would learn, adapting to their society and becoming something of a trickster, a jokester, full of smiles and warmth and the novelty of life, one who relied more on his hands and words than his strength. Some appreciated it more than others. He learned their calendar, tried to put a time to his birth before deciding that it had been quite a while, fifty of their years or more. He traveled often, trying not to get close to anyone like he had those back in his home. He succeeded, mostly, but his heart was too open, too caring, to not let someone in against his will eventually. She smiled and laughed and told him his playful movements made him look like a posturing rooster when they first met. She called him Gallus because of it. He loved her with all his heart, told her all his secrets, and she loved him back. They held hands as they watched Rome burn from the hillside and she fed what would become a love for the very thing that had killed him that first time, musing on the beauty of it all despite the destruction, listening to the music of a madman over the crackling sky. He had never seen a more beautiful thing then when he saw the world through her eyes, all vivid colors and melting worlds. She wandered with him until her legs could no longer carry her, too old and frail. He carried her after that. She died watching the sunset with him, smiling about how the painted sky was so very similar to that inferno so very long ago now. Her voice was barely a whisper, but he curled to her side and listened until there was no more to say. He buried her on that hillside, where the fires of the sun would light up her grave every night like the flames she adored.

The Empire seemed dull and empty after her, so he traveled further, keeping time with knots of string looped around his neck. One day they would form together into a scarf of sorts, but for now they were just notches of the years as he chose to record them. He explored and he learned, centuries passing him by with little notice aside from new tongues and new skills. He found new love with the bow, learning quickly, by his standards, how to master it. He wandered along the broad landmass before him, following tales and adventures and avoiding the chance of meeting another like her. Green became his color of choice, blending him well with the forests he found he enjoyed. Verdant replaced the grey for a while. Eventually though, the forests were left behind for deserts and cold and more. All of it blurred in his mind, bland and dull and easily forgotten. Occasionally there would be a flare of color and life, burning like a brand in his mind, but he always left them behind. He could not risk another like her despite the aching in his heart for companionship and warmth. He was often cold, inside and out. One day, five or more centuries since her, he found himself out on the water, headed back to his first home, Time seemed so very different than it had as a child, or as it had with her. He mused on it as he watched the cold waves, thinking on what would happen should he tip off the boat and into them. Drowning was slow and painful if held out, this he knew. It wouldn’t be any different in the ocean than in a pond. The poor people on the boat probably wouldn’t appreciate it, and he didn’t mind them, so he turned away from the edge of the boat and to them. They shouted with smiles when they saw him looking their way and he gave a placid smile back. He wasn’t Gallus anymore, but he wore a golden pendant around his neck with the strange bird of his namesake pounded into it, tucked into the faded knots of time. He gently felt over it as he watched them laugh and sing and light up the grey with laughter and joy. The moment the vessel touched soil, he hopped off and vanished into the expansive forest before him. There was still so much of his heart to maim, so much pain to be found as they were hacked from the organ and taken away, he couldn’t let such a handful be taken at once. It still felt like a part of him was tearing as he left the shores behind.

He followed the stories and the horse-trodden paths to the kingdom, to the mythos of King Arthur. One day, more than a thousand years later, he would laugh at how much the legends got wrong about the man. All the same, it was another empire, another new world of sorts to wander. He took a name more fitting for the new place he once knew so well, deciding it was common enough after he found that one of Arthur's cadre has the same name. And so the empty space of what people would call him was again filled, this time as Gawain.

The title of Gawain clung to him, a shadow that existed a lot longer than most of his names. English, though it was not called it then, was a strange language, but it was tenacious, clinging on with minor change as the centuries trundled on. He got used to it, as he once had with Latin, watching as it developed over the centuries. He spent much time in the woods, they were plentiful and they called to him just as they had all across the globe. He became something of a folktale, whether monster or fae or something else depending on where he happened to be living at the time. The folktales died out when he found a quiet place in the moss of a marsh and laid down, shutting his eyes and simply staying. Some deep part of him wished that maybe, just maybe, if he stopped, completely stopped, that the next time he died would be the last and he wouldn’t continue to let his heart be stolen away by those destined to reach their end. He gave up after a while, a period that didn’t seem all that long to him until he peeled the growths of the marsh off his flesh and found his knots of time half-rotted without his upkeep there to maintain them. He left them there and started walking. The walk to the nearest town found it much closer than it had once been, with his clothing ages out of style and the greenery still in his hair earning him strange looks. Decades seemed so short with nothing to count them by.

He left the land again, remaining closer to the coast this time, learning and forgetting in turn. Untold time passed until color lit up his life again with a broad smile and hair the same color of the flames he still adored. The lad was young, by his time at least, barely older than him in appearance but bright and innocent and taken away too soon by rotting flesh and sickness as it tore through the world. They swore love to each other as they lay dying together, weakened hands clutched tight and shaking. He told him of the worlds he had seen and his boyish sweetheart told him stories back, adventures he dreamed they could have had. He kissed him with chapped lips as the fires of the disease burned them up inside and wished he could be there with him to see the world over again with him with his final breath, resting his head on his weak chest just under the golden pendant as he slipped through his grasp and into the dark. He remained in the oppressive quiet until his death finally came. When he woke to find his body yet again uninhibited, he carried his lost young love to the forest and buried him beneath the most beautiful trees. He died again there, sobbing over his grave and once again feeling so very dull and grey and old.

He went back to England, as his island was called by then, feeling the need to go somewhere that didn’t contain the loss of such a large part of his heart like the larger world did. But fate, it seemed, had destined him for tragedy. Unlike all the times before, it started small. It gave him no choice but to draw that most weakened part of him out into the open like a target, beating and painful and so very red in his empty world.

It started with a panicked moment, a sword shining like a mirror coming down on a boy for nothing more than the fact that he had nothing to give. Something in him reacted, some unknown thing he thought long lost with pain and age. Perhaps it was due to his loss, barely a century before, such a short time in his ancient eyes. Perhaps it was just a chance. No matter the cause, it took less than a second to nock an arrow and bury it in the swordsman’s throat. He watched placidly as he choked on his blood and slumped, the weapon he had intended to end the life of the child falling uselessly aside. The gaze of the little one contained nothing less than awe, something that only grew when he unhooked the pouch from the dead man’s side and handed it to the child. It was meant to distract him, to bring the piercing eyes away from his tired face, but it did not. The boy clutched the pouch close, praising him with fumbled words and gratefulness and such bright innocence that it brought the world careening into bright colors for just a moment. Then the child launched forward, wrapping his arms around his leg in a clumsy hug, freezing him before he took off down the old road, already shouting for his mother about the man who had come out of the trees ‘like a bird’ and saved him. He watched him go before walking off again. Someone else could deal with the body, he had no need to bury it. That should have been the end, just a random happenstance, one good deed, but, just like him, it did not stop. The stories spread, like Arthur’s had long before. Even stranger, he let them. He didn’t vanish again, hiding until the words died off, instead he found himself doing the same again and again. Taking down those who angered him and handing off their possessions to the nearest individual like an offering. He became the man in the woods who took from the rich and gave to the poor. The boy’s exclamation became a title and once again he took the mantle of a bird.

He became Robin Hood, or so the stories would call him one day. To those in the towns, he was just Robin.

Others found him, sought him out deep in the woods, joined him. They were looking for a good cause and he gave them one as best he could. Their color crept up on him, greens and browns and so many other little things, bleeding their hues into the world around him until it was almost like it had been before his first death so long ago. One of them in particular was vibrant, practically glowing with it all. Broad and tall and full of sunshine, the heart of their little group brought out things thought long lost inside of him, laughter and playfulness and true joy. It was like magic. He could see the way he brought it out in all the others as well, brightening their darkest days. A sensation in his chest beat against his old wounds, feeling like love of a sort, though he refused to look close and find out what kind, refused to let in that kind of hurt even though there was no stopping it. He rose to his second-in-command of that strange little group of men with ease, his name spreading through the land as easily as the one he himself had taken. It was a good few years, full of color and something resembling life.

He knew he should have been expecting it to all come crashing down.

Someone with loose lips, perhaps plied by something more, the location of their home deep in the woods given out like coin. It was over before it even began, unprepared as they were. He ordered them to flee, to save themselves. Many, with great hesitation, escaped into the woods he’d made them learn like the backs of their hands, all except for the one who he wanted to live the most. Nothing could stop the roaring rampage of muscle and flesh and protective rage that struggled to get to him as he was dragged away, arrows sticking from him like a pincushion as he charged forward. He screamed for him to run, for that kindhearted treasure of a being to survive. He didn’t listen, of course he didn’t, his staff knocking men aside like they were nothing. He was the heart, the one who protected them all and saved them from their darkest moments. Ironic then, that the last arrow landed true, slicing through flesh and burying itself in the beating organ he embodied. It brought him to a sudden stop, slumping to his knees and he could do nothing but scream in agony as yet another piece of his heart was ripped away, unable to even bury this one somewhere where the sun could shine upon him for eternity, thrown bound and still mourning over a horse.

They let him wallow in his misery and loss for barely a day before they took his head. He reawoke hanging from a post, a warning against rebellion. It was little effort to work himself free and stumble from the city. He didn’t care anymore, he didn’t care about the people or their plight, he didn’t care about anything. It hurt too much, too much loss when everything seemed so wonderful, with no time to prepare for the end of it all like he had in the past. Robin died, Gawain the empty shell reborn. It seemed appropriate to take the name yet again as he fell silently into the next boat leaving anywhere.

Time seemed slower then, crawling forward as he wandered the steadily growing earth yet again. Perhaps it was just that there was more to see, more to draw him in like hooks or webs. A kind king found him, half-mad from an age of emptiness and grief, took him in. The world seemed like it would be colorful again and he tried to harden himself for it, for the inevitable loss. He lost himself in jokes and trickery, taking from the times of Gallus and from Robin, building up his walls as he grew close to them. The loss was both slow and fast when it happened, tearing them away like paper as the king went mad from the strain of a slowly collapsing kingdom. It hurt him unimaginably to take the head of the man he considered such a friend, their other companions littered around them like flies in their final throes of death. He had them all burned, watching the fire and cursing the empty sky for giving him such an existence. The Trickster King is who he became then, softening the blow of the end for the kingdom of the men he had given what he thought to be the rest of his heart. With the people content in their new lives, he left yet again. He tried to be good once more when a few centuries of seeing the changes to the world he once knew so well revealed the grey to be more painful than dull anymore. England was the best place, not coin this time but people, children. Taking them from the cold wet streets or from cruel people and giving them the best lives he could. His children aged and he watched them with something that felt like a smile and a sensation that felt like pride. Their deaths struck a softer blow, old age with full lives and hearts. It softened the grey again. He told a kind man of his attempts at the turn of the next century, found strange humor when the man gave him a name and a story of adventure and magical creatures. The boy who wouldn’t grow up. He wished that he could find kinship in the title, could accept the name like he had with others in the past, but it was simply too far away. He enjoyed the story of the innocent boy all the same. England became home yet again and he chose to do something he had not done once in his life, not truly, not for as long as he did then. Using scavenged gold and other trinkets, he settled into a stationary existence in an apartment. From there, he watched the world grow, joining in now and again to experience it, but never truly belonging. The world remained grey despite the vibrant colors it presented. When war came, and it came so very often now it seemed, he shuttered his windows and remained in his little home until it all stopped once more. Anonymity came with the little home and he kept it for as long as he could. He stopped learning for a few decades, losing himself in the past.

A new millennia was born and his home was lost in the name of expansion, of new bigger buildings. An apartment in a new town was found, busier than the last. There was no hiding from the world anymore. It had grown, expanded and changed, and so he adapted as he had more than once before. It was a search, fumbling and awkward, for a new existence. His heart shuddered from loss and loneliness as he looked out on the dark streets, mourning for the past and begging for another piece to be taken, to bring back the color for a little while. Funny how misery clamored for company. The person behind the counter of the store where he bought new clothes, another adaptation, asked his name. He fell back on the shell, on Gawain despite knowing it was old. They mistook it for a more current one. He didn’t correct them.

Gavin it was.

He didn’t want to do good anymore, despite how goodness had always led to the brightest colors and the brightest people. Good always hurt, it seemed. It seemed as well that archery translated well to the kick of a pistol in his hands. The spark and explosion brought fire into his heart once more and the shell filled, slowly, with the man behind it. He became a warrior of sorts, taking jobs where they were offered, so very different from the man that fought for the people. Death made the grey easier to deal with, like he was paying back the world for his hell. Blood painted the dullness in great swathes. Free was taken as a last name, as ironic as calling a mass of man and heart Little.

A call came through one day, a man from America. He knew about the land, he had since the first ships had headed for it en masse, but he had never gone. Too long trapped with too many people that he could let inside, that was what the trip offered. The man promised him just a single job though, just one little job to add to his shell, and planes were apparently quite fast now. He hadn’t died that way yet, something he mused on as he left the eastern hemisphere behind, for what he assumed to be just a few days.

He hadn’t been expecting the answer to his curses and prayers.

America was beautiful and loud and so very twisted and part of him regretted never escaping for it from the old world. The town the job led him to was even more so, soaked in death and blood and calling to his broken soul like a siren song.

And then he met them.

The man, tattooed and mustachioed and full of vigor broke through his walls like an explosion, settling in before he could stop him, the woman painted in flowers and murder right beside him. He couldn’t stop them, his heart accepting them like food for a starving man. He adored them. When a drive-by shooting ripped them from him he threatened to shake apart for good. Screams of despair were on his lips when the impossible happened.

They sat up.

They _sat up_.

It hit him in less than a second and suddenly, he wasn’t alone anymore. He stopped them as they tried to explain, simply hugging them close and allowing more than two millennia of tears to pour free. Between sobs that tore at his long-shattered heart, he told them. He told them he was the same. They smiled and held him as he broke apart and helped him fit the pieces back together again, smoothing the rough edges with their own souls. They promised to never let him be alone again.

They didn’t lie.

Others found them, so many of them so very young in comparison to him, so innocent in terms of loss and time. It didn’t matter what hurt anymore though. Colors filled his life and he let them, he broke down his own walls for them. They understood, as best as they could. They held him when sometimes he looked to the sunset and mused about the girl who taught him to love the thing that killed him, rubbing the pendant around his neck. Those with hair like embers let him sometimes run his hands through their strands and feel over their skin to check for rot, eyes distant and lost. They didn’t question why he locked himself in his room sometimes and watched silly old movies of green and merry men and tried not to cry. They didn’t tease about the earmarked old book of the boy who wouldn’t grow up with clumsy names written in the margins that he sometimes flipped through like it was something incredibly precious. When the last of their number joined, broad-shouldered and kind and so very familiar with his voice and smile and not a hint of recognition in his ageless eyes, they never tried to pry from him why he began to have moments where he would fall inside himself, rubbing his hands like there was blood there he could never get off. They smiled and allowed inside the mercenary they had hired as a bodyguard when he opened the door and recognized a face with a smile like sunshine and was recognized in turn, breathless repetition of names old and new healing wounds left by arrows and swords. They knew without asking why those nights of old films went from tears to laughter between just them and no one else.

They turned their curse, or their blessing perhaps, into a game. Death was nothing more than another factor in an adventure when it wasn’t the true end. They made him laugh despite the pain and the world was bright and vivid and whole, mostly. They healed him as best as they could.

He, in turn, let Gavin become more than a name. He let it become him, with all his loss and pain and love. He handed out the name with ease and burnt the names they gave him in turn deep into his heart, willingly this time.

Geoff, Jack, Michael, Ray, Ryan, and so many, many others. They were more than faces, stark and seared behind his eyelids like so many others still were after so many years. They were destruction and fire and beauty and endless boundless joy. They were the healing of his heart, the end of his old life and the beginning of the new.

The world was grey, but they gave it color.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Holy shit this got so fucking long and I regret none of it. 


End file.
